Miss Tara

Chapter eight

2017

June

Happiness is a colour, warmth splashed onto the canvas of life.

"You know, some would say we're moving a bit fast - you know, moving in together - marriage, and all -" Fabian nuzzles his face into the hollow of her neck, smiling into her skin.

"What? You don't think nineteen years of fooling around is enough time wasted?" 

Fabian merely laughs, grabbing her waist tightly as he pulls her against his body. "All those years were great fun, though." He murmurs, his hot breath trickling across her neck.

"Yeah, you shagging all those birdies must have been great fun - remind me why I married you again?" She gasps as a moan catches at the back of her throat. "Let's just be normal from now on, yeah?"

"Normal?" He scoffs, his hips pressing into her side, "You'll never be normal, Tara Smith -"

(He will pick this spot, years from now. Love, he'll whisper.)

2019

June

"It takes time, Tara -"

"It has taken time - a year of it!"

Fabian looks at his wife, unable to hide his smile. "You can't just tell your uterus to whip a baby up like that -"

A smile filters across her face, "I just want it now -" she sighs softly. 

He rubs her arm affectionately, "We'll have lots of fun practicing, right?"

She smacks him. Hard. "We have been practicing - a lot."

His breath is hot against her skin, "Somehow I never tire of it, though."

--

December

There are weddings, funerals, life, baby's breath. There are smiles and laughter, there is her. I love you, love you, love you, love, love, love, love -

Newton's law again. 

"Cancer? Cancer -"

The doctor is a large man with brown spectacles, sitting there in front of him, her hand in his, Fabian feels young again. His voice is small, 

"But - but - that's a disease - you - you must have cured it –"

A hysterical laughter is bubbling in his throat, the irony hitting him out of the blue. But I was the one who smoked -

"I'm sorry." The man is looking down at his large hands, the sunlight filters through the blinds behind his desk and Fabian is mesmerized by the light, knowing that this is not happening - this is all a dream - they are trying for a baby - for - for life. 

Tara stares up into his face. She lifts her arm up to sweep across his jaw, "It's okay," she tells him gently. But it's not, it's not -

"Your wife's dying." 

And the world comes undone.

(Such time you've wasted).

 2024

June

Tara once told Fabian that she didn't have time for love and had watched as he had wiggled his hands. Cobwebs, Diamond-girl, cobwebs -

Fabian shifts in his sleep, his lips skimming across her skin, and she knows now that love is right here, between her hands, right next to his sleeping face. I love, love, love, love, love you - love you -